The front half
of these barracks contained washing facilities. There were only three such barracks
in BIIa. There were 16 living barracks. The latrines were accessible for only
short periods.

There was no privacy,
very little water for washing and little or no opportunity for personal cleanliness
in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Prisoners were often afflicted with typhus and other
diarrhea-producing illnesses.

Author Terrence
Des Pres described it as an "excremental assault" and wrote: "How
much self-esteem can one maintain, how readily can one respond to the needs
of another, if both stink, if both are caked with mud and feces?"*.

* Terrence Des Pres, The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps
(Pocket Books: New York, 1976) p. 66.